Gagging law: we won the argument but lost the vote

It’s a setback: MPs voted today to reverse some of the hardest-won and most important changes made to the gagging law in the House of Lords.

But it’s not over yet. In a process known as ping pong the Bill now goes back to the Lords, where they’ll have the option to override MPs and make them vote again. So, all is still to play for.

Here’s how the votes went in the Commons:

On the vote to reject Lords’ changes to how much staff costs count towards total spending limits, amendment 108: 310 MPs voted to reject the changes, & 278 MPs to accept them into the Bill

On the vote to reject Lords’ changes to the scope of what activity counts towards constituency spending limits, amendments 26 and 27: 314 MPs voted to reject the changes, & 274 MPs to accept them

But in better news, some other improvements were accepted by the Commons today, like doubling the threshold spend before you have to register with the regulator, and reducing the period when this law will apply from 12 months to 7.5 months. That’s a direct result of all our pressure.

So now we just need to recoup our big losses.

Here is how all MPs voted on the big amendments. 108 (staff costs) and 26 (constituency limits). Type your MP’s name or the name of your constituency in the box to filter the list. (We wanted MPs to vote no to both 108 and 26).